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Femtojoule femtosecond all-optical switching in lithium niobate nanophotonics

Nature Photonics volume 16, pages 625–631 (2022)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 03 August 2022

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Abstract

Optical nonlinear functions are crucial for various applications in integrated photonics, including all-optical information processing1, photonic neural networks2,3 and on-chip ultrafast light sources4,5. However, the weak native nonlinearity of most nanophotonic platforms has imposed barriers for such functions by necessitating large driving energies, high-Q cavities or integration with other materials with stronger nonlinearity. Here we effectively utilize the strong and instantaneous quadratic nonlinearity of lithium niobate nanowaveguides for the realization of cavity-free all-optical switching. By simultaneous engineering of the dispersion and quasi-phase matching, we design and demonstrate a nonlinear splitter that can achieve ultralow switching energies down to 80 fJ, featuring a fastest switching time of ~46 fs and a lowest energy–time product of 3.7 × 10−27 J s in integrated photonics. Our results can enable on-chip ultrafast and energy-efficient all-optical information processing, computing systems and light sources.

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Fig. 1: Device design and operating principle.
Fig. 2: Integrated nonlinear splitter and its linear optical characteristics.
Fig. 3: Ultralow-energy nonlinear optical transmission in the integrated nonlinear splitter.
Fig. 4: Femtosecond, femtojoule all-optical switching.
Fig. 5: Performance comparison of various on-chip all-optical switches operating at room temperature.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper are available at https://figshare.com/s/6fb22ae146577d1ac7c0.

Code availability

The computer code used to perform the nonlinear simulations in this paper is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

Device nanofabrication was performed at the Kavli Nanoscience Institute (KNI) at Caltech. We thank K. Vahala and C. Yang for loaning equipment. We also thank J.-H. Bahng, R. Briggs and M.-G. Suh for assistance with the fabrication development process. A.M. gratefully acknowledges support from ARO grant no. W911NF-18-1-0285, NSF grants nos. 1846273 and 1918549, AFOSR award no. FA9550-20-1-0040 and NASA/JPL. We thank NTT Research for financial and technical support.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Qiushi Guo, Ryoto Sekine, Luis Ledezma.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Qiushi Guo, Ryoto Sekine, Luis Ledezma, Rajveer Nehra, Arkadev Roy, Robert M. Gray, Saman Jahani & Alireza Marandi

  2. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Luis Ledezma

  3. Department of Applied Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Devin J. Dean

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Contributions

Q.G. and A.M. conceived the project. Q.G. fabricated the devices and performed the measurements, with assistance from R.S., R.N., S.J. and R.M.G. L.L. developed the single-envelope simulation tool. L.L., D.J.D. and A.R. contributed to the design of the device. Q.G. and L.L. analysed the experimental results and performed the simulations. L.L. performed the periodic poling. Q.G. wrote the manuscript, with input from all other authors. A.M. supervised the project.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alireza Marandi.

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Competing interests

Q.G. and A.M. are inventors on a patent application (US patent application no. 17/500,425) that covers the concept and implementation of the all-optical switch described here. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–22 and Discussion sections I–XII.

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Guo, Q., Sekine, R., Ledezma, L. et al. Femtojoule femtosecond all-optical switching in lithium niobate nanophotonics. Nat. Photon. 16, 625–631 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-022-01044-5

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